


Everyone's A Critic

by twinkfloyd



Category: The Who (Band)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:08:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21960694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinkfloyd/pseuds/twinkfloyd
Summary: "I know what'll cheer me up, a bit of merrymaking. Dougal! Fetch me my mischief gloves!"
Kudos: 4





	Everyone's A Critic

**Author's Note:**

> For Soobie. 'Keith Moon,Harry Nilson (The Who): Outrageous, outlandish, destructive, and entertaining, A typical night for the duo. Buddyfic ok..' 
> 
> Not quite a typical night but typical enough. 
> 
> EDIT: i'm sorry I misread the prompt -w-" Nilsson Schmilsson.

“Out of line, out of _line_? The bloody Oo are going to tell ME that I’m Out. Of. Line?” Keith sputtered shaking his head, “This is, this is ridiculous… Traitors, is what they are- my own, closest friends, who I would consider _brothers_ to me, tell ME I am OUT OF BLEEDIN’ LINE. Dougal, surely you see the hypocrisy in this, this this blasphemy?”

“It ain’t right is what it is,” Dougal obliged him, having been company to Keith’s outrage following what could have been a minor disagreement. “You’re no worse than any of them, they’ve got no place to say such things but-”

Keith snapped out of his raucous self soothing, ears pricked at the hint of dissension. “-You might have gone too far with doing that to Pete.”

“Whose side are you on!?” he gawped.

It was difficult being responsible in these sort of things, when John refused to play along he was still ever at his disposal to act as co-conspirator. Sometimes you couldn’t just tell him no, especially in his position- The Alfred to his Batman, Joker was more like it, but sometimes you really had to… or well things like this would happen. “I know he’s not everyone’s cup of tea all the time and I’m sure he understands you didn’t mean any harm by what you did but well, he’s sensitive.”

“An artist,” he spat, “Prone to his moods. Why does it always have to be about him though? The golden child, gold’n fuckin’ goose. Fuckin’, shove a stick of butter up his ass and serve him on a plate with a sprig of fuckin’ holly. Merry fuckin’ Christmas.”

Despite being the tormentor here, Keith was still the victim as far as he was convinced, the ugly duckling in a flock of ugly swans. Dougal could only raise his eyebrows, vacillating on how to react, the imagery driving him to distraction. “...Reckon you wouldn’t get much meat off him, awf’ly skinny. Had I to pick somebody to eat, I’d go with John, more filling. Pete you could use as a toothpick after the meal.”

“Not me? I bet I’d be much tastier,” Keith argued, drawn into this new fictitious conflict.

“There’s no accounting for taste. I’m just saying, Roger’d be all tough ‘n stringy and well I couldn’t eat you cos you’re m’ best friend.”

“Fine, apology accepted."  
" _Keith_. You know what ya need to do, you gotta apologize t' Pete."

"But he deserved it! Deserves it more now for acting like such a brute to me cos of it. At least admit it was funny, it was funny I sar you laugh," he pointed.

"Ok I did but that doesn't make it right. You know he's just going to stay mad at you til ya do it."  
Keith groaned, "He'll just start arguing with me if I say anything though."

"Then write him a letter or something, does he ever check his fanmail?”

“Me? Write?” Keith scoffed at the sheer absurdity, “And make a mockery of meself before the Bard as ‘e parshes his way through the ravings of a madman?”

“All ya gotta do is say yer sorry. It ain’t literature.” He paused reigning in his thoughts, “Think of it this way, you drop a letter off at his place, and you don’t got to yunno prostate yourself ‘fore his lashing like you’re convinced is going to happen.”

Keith exhaled heavily, eyes wearily gazing ahead of him, “You might be right.”

“I might be.”

Seeking his muse, Keith followed his mentor’s lead, and opened a bottle, or three. Frees the mind, lowers… standards. Being frank and honest was difficult when you were sober and Keith, but somehow by the end of the night, he’d produced something he could be confident presenting to Pete as an earnest (again, still Keith) apology. Now to deliver it. 

Just, pick your feet up annnnd go. Go. Go now. Now and you’ll still have time for a bit of merrymaking while you’re out. C’mon feet. He sighed, and called for Dougal once more. “What is it?” he popped his head in the room, expecting a flaming mountain of shredded kindling or a knife throbbing out of the table or something of the lot, the telly still chattering away in the other room, the blue glow cast along the side of his whiskery face. 

Keith flaccidly held out his arms and turned his big brown eyes to him, “Help me up?” 

“What, someone come in here an’ break your legs? Was it Pete?” he rolled his eyes, giving him a brisk yank to his feet. 

“You know what, it was, the crafty devil. Saw I was tryin’ to beg for forgiveness down on me knees and SMASHED EM, jus’ like one of him guitars. WHACK!”

“It’s terrible what he does to them, brutalizi-”

“I think it’s _art_ ,” Keith smiled admiringly to himself.

“Y’know first gig I ever got with you lot was stealing guitars for Pete,” Dougal recalled (#tbt), Keith tucking his letter into his breast pocket for safe keeping and smoothing himself down. 

“Was it? That’s awfully considerate of you, given it’s Pete. When’ve I ever asked you to commit a felony for little old me?”

“Last week,” he stated plainly. “Well I didn’t really steal anything that one time, I was merely the getaway driver.”

“But we made a proper delinquent of you yet,” Keith ragged affectionately, looping an arm around his friend and swaying towards the door. “Now let’s go rob Pete then eh, what goes around comes around.”

“Thought we was delivering a letter,” he righted him as he began to slip.

“Ah right you are, always on top of things aren’t you. Humbling myself before the great and terrible Schnoz and begging his forgiveness. Can’t wait to grovel for him.”

“Because you’re so very good at groveling,” Dougal guided him towards the door, the damp night air greeting them like a big slobbery dog. 

“That I am.”

Keith set off down the stairs at a brisk jaunt, ignoring the car in favor of some healthy exercise to clear his head, Dougal trotting along behind like a loyal hound on the hunt, umbrella tucked under his arm with some caution for the weather, or potentially needed to beat somebody off the other. Keith embraced the spits of rain on his rosy cheeks, imbued with Confidence, priding himself on his maturity and letting bygones be bygones. Even if Pete didn’t _really_ deserve it and the prat could stand to have his ego bruised a little while longer before he came crawling back to Keith having realized what a terrible mistake he’d made in abusing the poor boy like only Pete could. 

Verbal lacerations, still ripe on his flesh. He was probably talking about him behind his back with the lads right now. Oh Keith he can't be trusted he's just a fuck up we keep around for laughs- actually why was he doing this, he didn’t deserve his apology, not until he apologizes to HIM. Fuck this he had half a nerve to storm up to his house right now and give him what for. Keith began to pick up his pace, turning the corner. Aping him. Faster. Taunting him. Faster. 

Keith ran off ahead, fading into the sinking fog with purpose. Directed only by his sense of determination as for what he realized had to be done. A familiar house came into view, yes, lining the fence, was a collection of bottles waiting for the rubbish or posed between the slats as decoration for the miserable drunk. The lights were still on in the windows, though no figures moved behind them, hardly expecting company at this hour. Justice, echoed his thoughts. Damn the niceties and howdy-do bullshite, he grabbed a bottle and self-righteously chucked it at the house. “TAKE THAT FUCKER.” 

The beautiful sound of breaking glass shattered across the street, rewarding his impulse. Maybe he’d regret this later, but Pete would regret it now.  
“YEAHAHAHAHA!” Keith howled, taking another empty and tossing it through the window. “HAVE AT YEA BLAGGARD. THERE’S MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM!” 

Dougal doubled over, catching his breath as he watched Moonie take a swig from his current bottle and in a stroke of inspiration, fished his lighter from his pocket. He patted his coat for a napkin or something to shove into the neck, cursing as he dumped its contents onto the damp pavement in the dark. “Dougal, do, be a good fellow, ‘n pass me somethin’ to wick this Molly with,” he swore again as he spilled beer over himself, trying to get a handle on his light. 

He dug through his pockets and looked past the fence, wrinkling his nose as he squinted. “Ey Keith, in’ that your house?” 

“Huh.” he took a gander, realization dawning upon him as he raised his failed molotov cocktail to his lips. “Guess it is.”

“Maybe you should head on in… Best we perhaps do this in the morning sir.” Dougal suggested, glancing at his car parked on the curb. 

“Fuck,” he held his head, “Don’t try talking that sense to me… How do you even get lost and end up at your own bleedin’ place you started from.”

“Homing pigeons do it all the time,” he sighed, “I’ll clean up the glass, you get some sleep. I’ll drive you over first thing.”

“I’m dumber than a pigeon. Dougal, I wouldn’t know what I’d do without you,” Keith weighed, dragging himself back upstairs. “Almost burned me house down tonight… all because I was mad at Pete for somethin’ I did.”

“Yes well, when he does something deserving we can burn his house down then.” 

“I’d love that.”

“You would.”

Keith meekly rapped upon the Townshend residence door early next morning in the pissing rain. The letters had begun to run on his note but affected the legibility little. Mr. Townshend opened the door, long nose jutting forth and took note of his loathsome company on this fine day. “What’s this, another scathing review,” Pete icily stated. 

“Scathing review, was it really scathing, I mean,” Dougal cut him off as he loudly cleared his throat. “I’ve um… come to… apologize. For… that.”

“For my bloviating, farting pompous pretention?” He gave him an unsympathetic look, prepared to close the door and leave him for a more forgiving future Pete. “Or looking like side effects of advanced mental and liver decay.”

“Poetry.... Well you have to admit it was at least a little funny.”

“Extremely little…”

“I’m not very good at this,” he pressed the letter into his hand, “I suppose it’s my fatal flaw, bein’ too clever fer me own good. But I mean it when I said I’m sorry all that does is makes me a screw up, you don’t deserve an embarrassment like that.”

Pete restrained himself enough to read over it and softened, Keith cowering there looking pathetic and still getting rained on. There was a short inhale as he set it down, “Perhaps… maybe I overreacted very very slightly in the moment.”

A fat raindrop ran off Keith’s lashes as he looked up at him. 

“Don’t take being punished as meaning we don’t love you, we just don’t necessarily love _everything_ you do. Like that. That in particular.”

He light up, having been absolved from his sins by Saint Townshend the noble. “Really?” Pete nodded once and Keith latched onto him. “Awh, you old sap, you’re almost making me feel bad for tryin’ to burn your house down last night.”

“WHAT.”

“An’ a good thing I didn’t.”


End file.
